The HyperTransport Technology Consortium, of which Apple is a charter member, has announced the availability of two new HyperTransport-based products and three new members.
HyperTransport interconnect technology is a high-speed, high-performance, point-to-point link for integrated circuits, developed to enable the chips inside of high-performance computers, networking and communications devices to communicate with each other faster than with existing technologies. HyperTransport technology’s bandwidth of 12.8GB/sec purportedly offers up to a 48-fold increase in data throughput, compared with existing system interconnects that typically provide bandwidth up to 266MB per second.
PLX Technology and PMC-Sierra have announced the availability of networking products integrating HyperTransport technology, while Seaway Networks’ Streamwise technology will integrate the I/O link. Seaway also joins communications companies, Agilent Technologies and MathStar Inc., as the newest members of the HyperTransport Technology Consortium.
PLX Technology’s PLX PowerDrive HT7520 HyperTransport Tunnel-to-Dual PCI-X Bridge provides high-speed interconnection capability to communications and storage-system applications. It frees today’s communication systems from performance limitations while leveraging the current PCI infrastructure, said Kimkinyona Fox, product marketing manager at PLX.
“The device allows backward compatibility of existing PCI hardware and software with the added benefit of supporting next-generation I/O bandwidth and performance requirements,” Fox said.
PMC-Sierra announced the company is now sampling its RM9000x2 64-Bit MIPS-based multiprocessor running at 1.0 Gigahertz with integrated memory and I/O interfaces. The RM9000x2’s HyperTransport I/O bus is a 500 MHz Double Data Rate (DDR) bus that delivers 16 Gbit per second of raw bus bandwidth for maximum performance and provides the RM9000x2 with connectivity to a wide range of high-speed networking peripherals, said Tom Riordan, vice president and general manager of PMC-Sierra’s MIPS Processor Division.
HyperTransport complements externally visible bus standards like the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI), as well as emerging technologies like InfiniBand. Although initially developed for high-performance personal computer and server platforms, the technology is also gaining momentum in networking and communications devices, embedded applications and other non-PC devices. Multiple products integrating support for HyperTransport technology are in development to support desktop and notebook personal computers, workstations and servers, and Internet communication devices.
The HyperTransport Technology Consortium was founded to develop, promote and manage specifications of the HyperTransport I/O link.